Anything you can be, I can be better
by chbedok1
Summary: When a soldier first heard how his hero had fallen, his father had merely told him; "suck it through the back, and be better." So he did.
1. Chapter 1

"Status report please."

Swinging down from one of the many beams installed in the room, Winston landed heavily onto the reinforced floor and headed towards the command post. A single podium, surrounded by banks of monitors and machinery, all fully staffed, all working overtime and all showing the same images. The only difference being the angles, and the news company reporting on said images.

"No changes on the situation so far; stand-offs, shots fired and hostages have been reported."

Winston grunted in acknowledgement.

"Police response is forthcoming, and the Over-Watch security team on-site have managed to evacuate most of the hostages. But the Bio-Web is under hostile control, with hostages present."

Winston would have killed for a jar of peanut butter right then.

"Winston! I got your message, what is happening?"

Winston turned towards the sound of the automatic doors, then knuckled over to the only man on this earth who was bigger than a bull gorilla. Simian paw gripped the sledgehammer of hand, before leading the walking mountain of muscle back to the command post.

"Talon operatives have just assaulted and taken, one of the Biological Research Labs of Axiom LLC. The situation is developing as we speak."

"Talon?" The man-mountain cursed. "Bloody terrorists. Do we have a response team ready to deploy?"

"Gearing up, but the situation is complicated, and I am reluctant to commit anything just yet."

"Should I get my hammer then?"

"No Reinhardt, between the on-site security, law enforcement, and the response team. There should be enough men on the ground to storm the facility. The problem is doing so without bloodshed, and I'll need your advice."

Reinhardt's arms folded themselves across his chest as he stared back at the gorilla, who was working four keyboards at once. Once for each limb.

"What is the problem?"

"Multi-faceted. Firstly; the Over-Watch teams will be playing this according to what the local authorities decide to do. Axiom may employ us, and thus allowed to act accordingly to defend the interests of our employers, but that is a grey area of the Petras Act. We're on shaky legal ground, and we can't go hard and fast in this situation as a result."

Reinhardt sighed as he considered Winston's words. The fabric of his shirt is stretching to accommodate his movements.

"Makes you miss the good old days huh? Back then, the police would have been begging us to handle the matter. But now, we play second fiddle to amateurs."

"And that's the second problem," Winston continued, all twenty digits working still. "This is the first major incident Over-Watch is dealing with since we reformed, and privatized, twelve months ago. I'm not sure if we're ready for something on this level of action."

"Bah! You worry too much Winston. We have worked hard this past year. We are ready for this; you must have faith in us and the effort that has been given to prepare for an event such as this."

Reinhardt stepped forward and clapped a warm hand onto Winston's shoulder, encased like the rest of his body, in gleaming white armour.

"This is our time to shine; we'll make this work out in the end."

Winston's limbs stopped.

"You're right Reinhardt. We are ready for this. Still, wouldn't hurt to have some inside information as to what is happening now."

"Sir! You need to hear this!"

Vaulting over the railings, Winston propelled himself over to the monitor currently occupied by a slender woman with straight dark hair. The symbol on her perfectly starched uniform indicating that she was a communications specialist.

The floor shuddered as Reinhardt caught up with Winston, who had the expert's headphones pressed against his ear. Reaching over the expert's shoulder, Winston flipped a switch and turned on the loudspeakers.

"Good afternoon. I am Over-Watch agent Leon Grand, serial operation code; MY-403N9-D as in Dragunov. Does anyone read me? Over."

* * *

Winston's mind ran off for a moment as he considered the voice which was coming through the headphones.

"I repeat; this is Over-Watch agent Leon Grand. OSC; MY-403N9-D. Does anyone read me? Over."

The voice was young, despite its strength. The words were clipped and to the point, the result of relentless drilling by stern instructors and superior officers.

Reinhardt replied Winston's glance with equal confusion.

"Seriously, though, if anyone doubts my identity, please pass this onto Communications Specialist Dhalia; YOU AND JAMESON SERIOUSLY NEED TO GET A ROOM - !"

The slender woman with straight dark hair jolted out her seat snatched the headphones out of Winston's hands and cut the speakers hard enough to make Reinhardt flinch. It had been decades since anyone had been able to lay claim to that achievement. That person had then passed away due to old age a week later.

Reclaiming her chair with a sheepish silence, Dhalia handed her headphones back to Winston before clarifying.

"That's Leon Grand sir, no doubt about it."

Winston nodded in reply. Placed the headphones to his ear, and flipped another switch.

"Agent Grand, this is Winston. We read you. Over."

"Finally. My current situation is 'haven't a clue'. I am sitting on the third-floor toilet, located in the west wing of the Bio-Web, next to an unconscious Talon operative. With two more dead outside. Waiting for further orders. Over."

Third-floor toilet? Winston wondered.

"What happened Agent Grand? Explain your situation."

Grand's voice was a mixture of embarrassment and slight apology as it came through the speakers.

"Interesting story that one …"

* * *

Elijah would have shot his squad if he could get away with it. There is a reason that he does not drink sodas, looking for the loo while clearing a hostile installation was the biggest one. So, of course, his buddy decides to fill his canteen with coke, instead of water, before a mission. His partner's idea for a joke, which was why as the door swung closed, Elijah zeroed in on the nearest urinal and unzipped his trousers.

He was well into the moment of relief when he remembered; He should have cleared the room first.

His heartbeat calmed a little when Elijah craned his head over his right shoulder and saw nothing there that would have proven to be a threat.

His heartbeat stopped when he saw the short, Asian man standing behind his left shoulder, leaning against the stalls. The man had his arms folded across solid torso with a slight paunch around his waist. He also had a look of sympathy on his face.

"Take your time."

Elijah started hopping on the spot, in a desperate attempt to hasten his emptying bladder.

"Seriously man, don't rush."

Elijah kept hopping.

And hopping.

Before whipping around with his sidearm drawn, fixed and ready to fire at his hip.

Elijah then crashed into something rigid, sharp, and hard. Off-balance, he was thrown backwards into the unflushed urinal. Ignoring the throbbing pain and sudden damp, Elijah bounced back onto his feet, frantically searching for something to shoot.

He doubled over when a foot got unloaded into his groin, another hand twisted his wrist and using his locked out arm as a lever. The man spun Elijah onto the ground and broke his nose.

Consciousness flickering behind his eyes, Elijah heard the two other members of his squad preparing to rush the toilet door over the throbbing of his skull. Feebly, his hands reached out and failed to prevent the man from ransacking his grenade pouch.

As the door crashed open, Elijah's last thoughts were simply;

Of course, it had to be a fragmentation grenade.

And he knew how to use it.

* * *

" … But other than a few splinters stuck in my hand. I'm fully operational, what are your orders, sir?"

Before Winston could reply, Reinhardt grabbed the microphone instead.

"Grand, you just sat through a grenade explosion at close-quarters. Covered or not, you are not 'operational' in any degree. Hold your position, or get out of there now."

"That explosion would not have gone unnoticed. Holding my position isn't feasible Instructor Reinhardt. Besides, I can provide intelligence on the situation, and possibly find entry points for the breach teams. I believe that operational or not, I more useful to you where I am now."

Winston grunted and gestured for Reinhardt to pass him the microphone.

"Understood. Agent Grand, I need you to head down to the main Biological Laboratory in sector 4; we need to know their numbers, weapons and who is leading this raid. You are to recon and report, do not engage. I repeat, do not engage. Is that clear?"

Rustling cloth and a second of exasperated mumbling had crackled over the speaker before Leon replied.

"Sir, yes sir. Moving out now. I also need a path mapped out to the third-floor storage office of sector 1. One which preferably avoids hostiles and is on the way to Sector 4."

"What for Agent Grand?"

"For starters? A First-Aid kit, sir."


	2. Chapter 2

"Sir! We've got a situation."

Without turning to face his subordinate, Reaper only spat in reply.

"Ignore it. It's just one hostile; order all perimeter squads to hold their positions and watch their backs. Our priority is this lab."

"Uh, that's just it sir. We've lost contact with all perimeter squads."

Reaper finally turned away from the hostages he had been glaring at for the past hour.

"And we just lost contact with Patrol Section One. Sir."

Reaper's mask may have been inanimate, but anyone looking at him would swear that the skeletal exterior darkened at the soldier's words. Barging past the bearer of bad news, Reaper barrelled over to the office built on the second-floor balcony he had been standing on. Shoulders, rolling in tandem with his heavy tread, brushed aside the guards posted at the door, slow as they were in responding to their boss's displeasure.

"Connors! Update."

The engineer kneeling by the bank of machinery had dressed like his other Talon colleagues, black fatigues, boots and matching body armor. The only difference was that his mask did not cover his strong chin and sharp jaw.

"Five minutes sir."

At that moment, the fire alarm woke up, and it wasn't happy about being woken up.

"Make it three, and you get a bonus after this job."

Connor's smiled and got back to work.

"You! Get the remaining patrol sections out of here. You! Tell the extraction detail to prepare Ex-Fil plans Alpha through Charlie, the ones we don't use are to serve as diversions. No matter what, Connor and that information he has takes priority and are to be undamaged when they leave. Understood?!"

The two Talon soldiers snapped to attention and started shouting orders at their men. Meanwhile, Reaper stepped over the balcony railing and dropped to the lower floor, heavy combat boots splashing in the puddles forming because of the fire alarm's sprinklers.

"Patrol Section One had been holding the east corridors; I want all your guns trained on those," Reaper gestured to sliding two doors marked 'one' and 'two.' "Get the hostages and place them at the other doors, in case the cops try anything too smart."

Reaching around, Reaper pulled out his shotguns and checked their loads while around him; Talon soldiers responded to Reaper's orders with professional efficiency. Hostages screamed and gasped as guns prodded them into position, clips and rounds were loaded and chambered where the soldiers had hunkered down and taken cover behind banks of monitors and other assorted pieces of technology. And in the background, the fire alarm continued throwing its piercing tantrum, screaming, and crying and leaving puddles of water all over the laboratory floor.

Ignoring the damp, Reaper kept his eyes facing forward and focused on wondering who would die first; the hostages? Or this hostile attempting to stop him.

* * *

Leon Grand crashed through a thin wall panel and found himself on a second-floor balcony, a compound bow in one hand, arrows in the other, and staring down a squad of stunned Talon soldiers who had their guns trained over the railing.

One month into his job at the Laboratories, Leon had overheard a pair of engineers talking about an old passageway that connected Sector 4 to Sector 1. It took weeks for Leon to clean out the passage and a month's pay to convince the engineers to overlook it conveniently. It had been fun, and an ultimately useful, side project. Just like the caches of gear and supplies he had set up in the buildings of his current place of employment. One such cache being in a plaster covered hole, tucked away in the corner of a storage office on the third-floor or Sector 1. It had been quite the detour getting to that cache, but at least Leon was comprehensively equipped when he found himself staring down a group of men holding a building, with hostages and guns.

The bandages and painkillers had also been very helpful. Leon's lungs could now work without feeling like it would blow his ribcage open, and the inhumane roar at the back of his head had now subsided to a dull migraine.

A grenade at close range hurts even if you are hiding behind a body and armor. Apparently.

* * *

Reaper's shotguns kicked themselves into a barrel melting frenzy, aimed at the Archer who had kicked his way out of the wall and hurled the closest man over the balcony railing.

Everyone else oriented themselves to Reaper's shotguns and opened the Talons were able not to hit any of their own despite the melee was a testament to their marksmanship.

That Reaper hit everything expect the Archer was a testament to how much he cared about petty things such as marksmanship.

On the balcony, the Archer plowed through the Talons posted to hold that position, his bow in his right hand and arrows in his left. Breasting the guns and soldiers with an even stride, the Archer turned a gun barrel aside and shoved an arrow into the exposed Talon's eye. Pivoting on a left foot turned the dying Talon into an impromptu barrier which provided enough cover for the Archer to release the rest of his arrows into the press of dark-armored bodies. One Talon survived the barrage with a flesh wound, but judging from the snap when the Archer got his hands on him, that Talon's wrist would never hold a fork steady again.

Growling, Reaper pulled himself apart and surged up to the balcony in a swirling mist of dark smoke, in an attempt to shoot the Archer in the back. Halfway up, Reaper's target threw himself over the railing, hit the ground, stumbled and drew his bow.

"Door's open, get out now! Go, go, go!"

Whipping around and switching hands, the archer turned and zeroed his next shaft behind him in a pre-emptive shot. Based entirely on the instinct that only animals possessed for sensing danger.

However, nothing could have helped the archer react to the grenade Reaper had lobbed down from the balcony.

Grand groaned as his hand reached for his bow.

He cursed as the weapon fell apart in his hand.

With his ears and ribs roaring, Leon spat and heaved himself onto his side, forcing his hands and fingers to feel their way, through blinding pain, towards the only other weapon he had grabbed from his cache.

The machines started belly-dancing once Leon staggered to his feet, which did not worry him much. Losing the feeling in his fingers, however, was deeply concerning. Between that and the agony, Leon tortured himself back to stability in time to face the black cloud boiling into solidity before him.

"Die," the dark cloud growled, vicious, clawed hands ending in a pair of brutally boxy shotguns.

"Do you know who I am?"

The guns dropped by mere inches, and it was enough.

Enough for Wilson to tense his left arm and lash out, for the claw attached to the gauntlet to streak over and yank one of the shotguns away from the cloud.

The other gun belched pellets and flame impotently as Leon barrelled past the shot and slapped the weapon aside. A lead fist tore the shotgun clean from a pale, clawed grasp before feeding said gun into the white mask where the mouth would have been on a person's face.

The ephemeral creature made no sound, merely clenched its fist and tore into Leon as a tenderizer would on the side of beef. Furious punches, bone-shaking impacts dealt at the end of wickedly edged gloves which would have stripped the flesh of a lesser opponent.

Riding the specter's fury, Leon bounced an uppercut off his knee before using the momentum to put everything he had left into dropping an elbow into the white mask.

A ghostly knee slammed into the floor. Then bounced up, smashing the back of a spectral, yet solid head into Leon's face.

Blinded by pain with blood sheeting over his lip, Leon barrelled forward, grabbed fistfuls of dark mist and pushed. The wraith stumbled backward and was forced to plant its feet, allowing Leon to lift, and drive his left foot into his opponent's right knee.

There was a roar, followed by the ghost hauling Leon up and into the ground.

Through the flashing lights and the taste of iron, Leon watched the specter limp over, pulling out another shotgun in between its slow, agonized tread.

"You're not bad kid, but now it's time to take a permanent dirt nap."

In response, Leon raised his hand, where a grenade pin hung limply off his finger, the kind of ring no one wants to see on anyone's finger.

"Apologies ghost. But it's Hasta Luego instead of a siesta."

The Specter growled, at the same time, Leon saluted and said before bolting for safety.

"See ya whenever ghost man."


End file.
